i met two people yesterday

the first was a guy on the austrian ski team, who was training yesterday where i skiied. so were the swiss women’s ski team, but i didn’t meet any of them. anyone who has any real experience skiing realises the lunacy of going over jumps at over 100 km/h, but he was actually an entirely normal guy. nothing loopy, nothing bonkers about him.

i’d probably say i know more history than most. and i know a fair amount about the activities on the Russian front in World War 2. Yesterday I met a native Austrian, who moved here in 1953. after being conscripted into the german army he spent 3 years fighting on the Russian front. three years, three russian winters, and three of those blistering summers. it’s one thing to appreciate the suffering on the russian front in literature (go and read Antony Beevor’s Stalingrad ;it’s brilliant and describes the Nazi campaign in Russia from about 1940 till the fall of Stalingrad. another of his books, Berlin describes the russian advance from Stalingrad all the way to Berlin) but to actually meet someone who was there is another thing entirely.